Why not? I think this title "Guardian admits WhatsApp story was flawed" reflects the content better. The original title "Flawed reporting about WhatsApp" could have meant many other things. For example, the article might have complained about flawed reporting of other newspapers.

I like this title better, and the likelyhood that I'd have clicked on it would have been less with the original.

Just because somebody wrote that rule down doesn't mean you have to follow it, much less enforce it. Do you believe in it yourself, in absolutely every case, or do you follow it just because it is a rule? I'm not trolling, just curious. I find to many people on the net follow rules blindly. Rules are crystallized attitudes of communities. They shape the community, but the community also shapes the rules. If people would never break a rule, not even a little bit, they would either never change, or only change to be more strict over time.

Why am I loosing so many words over this? Why do I say you shouldn't bother that much, but then myself bother so much to write this? Because I don't want the moderation on HN to become like Wikipedia or Stack Overflow.

> Why not?

Personally I couldn't care less about the "Guardian admits…" narrative. The article is a genuinely informative analysis that would be done a disservice to be framed as support for an apology.

>Do you believe in it yourself, in absolutely every case, or do you follow it just because it is a rule? I'm not trolling, just curious.

I don't think you're trolling. I understand your viewpoint. I'm against selective enforcement. If there's a rule, and it isn't applied evenly to everyone all the time, it is a weapon of oppression. It is like the electronic form of white privilege.

Weeell, I'm not sure I like your comparison with white privilige, but I get your point. I see that kind of selective enforcement happen IRL too often. Ideally of course you'd adapt the rules to be a bit less strict, and find a middle ground.

Exercising judgement is not oppression.

You are being downvoted substantially, but I think that, although it's not a huge deal, you're right. A better title is simply: 'Guardian: "Flawed Reporting About WhatsApp"'

We changed the title back to the original a while ago.

Submitters: please don't rewrite titles unless they are misleading or linkbait: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

The idea on HN is to let readers make up their own minds. If you'd like to say what you think is important about a story you submit, that's fine, but please do so in the comment thread. Then your view is on a level playing field with everyone else's.

The title of the article from the linked page is, “Flawed reporting about WhatsApp”. What editorializing are you referring to, and what is your suggested title?

Per HN guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html):

* If the original title begins with a number or number + gratuitous adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids."

* Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait.

The submission guidelines are clear about this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Use the original title. I've seen many informative titles smacked by this and made less informative. Here, an informative title is made less informative and clickbaity, with no action taken so far.

Again, the original title was "Flawed reporting about WhatsApp". I'm a frequent reader of this kind of news but I seem to have forgotten that it was the Guardian that caused this kerfluffle. The OP's title is accurate to the content while giving much needed context. The original title makes it seems like the article is about "flawed reporting" in general, which is incorrect.

That literally doesn't matter.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13766092

The submitter is editorializing.

But also from the HN guidelines:

"If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did."

I'm under the impression that this refers to the primary point of the comment. But fair enough. I have removed the part of the comment where I indicated I flagged this submission for editorializing in the title.

I think we all agree that the submitter changed the title. "Editorializing" is tendentious / slanted, but ok, they editorialized.

I think we all know what is written in HN rules.

So what, I like the title. I don't think anybody should do anything about it. I think we should all take it easy and enjoy an interesting article.